Two Hoots and A Holler: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Hoot #1

The elf came back to the Rockstars this year!  This year my students chose to name her "Twinkle Star".  She has a friend across the hall named "Jolly"...they are bad to the bone when they are together!  My students love Twinkle Star!  It is so funny to hear them talking to her.  She only had to go away twice this year.  She got grounded from our class until our behavior improved.  Santa made her work in his workshop while she was away...my students were not happy about that at all!  Check out some of the shenanigans  that have gone on in our room...

 She loves to read!  Christmas books about Santa are her favorite! 

Jolly and Twinkle Star got into the Christmas ribbon!  They left ribbon all over our class, and Twinkle Star got a little tangled up in all that ribbon!  We think Jolly helped to tangle her up in all that ribbon! 

Our tree got toilet papered, and the next day she had to have a day to rest!  I guess that wore her out! 
 

Here was her letter our class stating Santa made her stay in the North Pole.  It showed up on our morning meeting Power Point!  The picture below was when she came back.  

Hoot #2 
What a day of giving it has been! Today was our Christmas party! We started the morning with the Polar Express movie. The children drank hot chocolate and ate cookies while the children in the movie drank hot chocolate on the train ride to the North Pole.  When the boy receives the bell as the first gift of Christmas, our students got jingle bell necklaces!  As the movie ended we ate pizza and created our own desert!

 Each child created their own editable Christmas tree using pointed cones, twizzlers and M&M's. 
We had so many parents come this year! What a blessing!!

We wrapped up the day, exchanging gifts with one another.   The students got to open their gifts!  We were so proud of how grateful and excited they were for their gift!  They opened it right away, and shared with everyone! 

Someone got a make up kit! Lovin' the blue eyeshadow! 

Great times were had by all!  Love those smiling faces! 

BUT......  
before all of the festivities started, We made sure that we thanked those that are so near and dear to our hearts! Can you guess who that might be????

 

 Here they are!! Our assistants! Mrs. Amanda, Ms. Betty and Mrs. Amy make it possible for us to do half of the crazy ideas that we come up with and we know it!! As our gift to them, we had these shirts made for them by Vinyl By Dana. Are these shirts not awesome?!?! Awesome shirts for awesome people! We are so thankful for them each and every day!

Of course, we had to have shirts of our own! So for Christmas I had to get Jodi a shirt! These are absolutely adorable! The picture doesn't do it justice.  Check out our Instagram for a better pic. Theses were also made by Vinyl By Dana. You can check Dana out on Facebook or Instagram.

Here is the whole crew!
During this holiday season, we are going to spend it with family and friends, as we hope you are. So this is our last post for 2015! Thank you all, who have cheered us on and supported our dreams! Thank you for your ideas and pushing us to grow! 

We want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!! 

This Week's Holler...
This week's holler goes out to Angela at The Bilingual Teacher! First we want to say that we are totally jealous that she can speak two languages fluently.  We have so many Spanish speaking students each year.  We know some of the basics but it is truly a gift to be about to speak both. We are also totally jealous that she got to go to NYC! We are sure it is a blast and look forward to some pics!  Angela has some really cute stuff! We have already printed off her lollipop addition to use in our classroom! Be sure to stop by and check her out!
 

Two Hoots and A Holler: Growing with Kindness

Hoot #1

This week we started our reindeer in the classroom. I have never done anything like this, so I thought it would be fun as part of the holiday spirit.  This is an idea that I got from Pinterest.  It is called R.A.C.K (Reindeer Acts of Christmas Kindness). It doesn't require a certain kind of reindeer.  I actually borrowed one from our preschool teacher. It visits in different areas of the room, like elf on a shelf, but that is where the similarities end.  If you haven't heard about of this, here is my version. When the reindeer first made its appearance, it came with a note explaining to the children that they were to help the reindeer earn its bells for Santa's sleigh by completing a mission each day. Each day the reindeer makes it appearance in a different location with a letter.  We read the letter and mission each morning.  The mission are just acts of kindness that you would try to instill any other day, it's just causing them to focus more on a particular kindness. The students love it! Each day they are so excited to see what the new mission will be. 

The students wanted to name our reindeer. Here is Sarah making her Glitter Girl debut!

Here are samples of letters that were written to the students.

Hoot #2
We got our results from our letter screener we did in August and then again in October.  It was absolutely AMAZING to see how much these kiddos have grown!  In August our school ranked 9 out of 14....by October we ranked 4 out of 14!  We were ecstatic that our kids showed so much growth!  It is little things like this that help remind us, "IT IS WORTH IT!"  It helped us to realize how far they have actually come in such a short amount of time.  There are no words for how proud we are of our kids!  And of course, ESGI helped make the actual assessment part A LOT easier!  It took hardly anytime at all to screen our whole class!  We have no idea how we survived without ESGI!!  If you haven't heard of ESGI, click on the link on the right side of our page to check it out! 

This Week's Holler...

This weeks holler goes out to Jennifer at Stories and Songs in Second!  Right now, she is part of the Pick 3 Pinterest Party! Jennifer shared some really cute Christmas crafts, foods, and centers (stations) galore! We love her Teacher Holiday Toolbox! We will definitely be putting that to use! She does a ton of collaborative blogging too! Really blogging buddies, she has a lot of great stuff! Check her out!

Two Hoots and A Holler: December begins...

Hoot #1

This week we have started two really big things...TESTING and CHRISTMAS! I bet that you've never seen those two words in the same sentence!! Well, it's true.  This week the window opened to start testing our students' reading levels.  Our district uses Fountas & Pinnell to determine each child's reading level.

I always get a little excited during this time of the year. Yes, each report card period we see growth, but there is something about the mid-year mark that causes me to reflect and see how much they have really grown since they entered my door for the first time!
Jodi and I also use ESGI to asses our students. If you do not know what this is, let me tell ya, it's the best assessment tool that I have ever seen and used! It has saved us tons of time! We can now get our report cards done pretty quickly! ESGI has all of the tests that you need for the entire year. Want to know more about it? Just click on the link on our blog to learn more and to receive a discount on the product! 

Hoot #2

We have also started all things Christmas! Santa's workshop would not be complete without his toy soldiers!

 Here we are creating our toy soldiers! Yes they are huge! That is one of the things that I love about them! They are basically the size of each child, give or take a few inches!

Be prepared to see many more holiday treats in the upcoming weeks!

This Week's Holler...

This week's goes out to Kim Adsit!! We have looked up to Kim for years, long before we dared to dream of blogging and TPTing!! Kim is now a retired kinder teacher.  When she is not presenting nationally, she is donating her time to her daughter's class.  Kim is still impressing little minds as well as educatiors around the globe!! She saves teacher LOADS of money by not only showing items that can be bought at dollar stores, but also shows educators ways to use those item in the classroom!  We are totally excited about her Christmas more/less activity! It looks like we will be going to Target after we eat a little turkey!! Check out her blog!

We had seen Kim present several times throughout the years, but we had the honor of talking to her as we walked to our rooms during a bloggers meet-up! We had recently talked in front of the group to introduce ourselves.  She said she loved our accents!! Now we are so blessed to call her friend! God bless your sweet heart Kim!